Training Nutrition

Poorly planned meals or snacks can interfere with quality training sessions or race day performance. Athletes should be educated on the basic goals of fueling guidelines for the before, during and after of their workouts. Many of these recommendations are similar to race day nutrition guidelines.

Before Training

The goals of fueling before a training session are to ‘top off’ carbohydrate stores, optimize hydration, provide energy for the start of the workout and delay glycogen depletion.

Recommendations:

• An athlete should ideally have a low fat, moderate protein, high carbohydrate (low to moderate gi) meal or snack within 1-4 hours prior to the training session.

• Carbohydrate content of the meal or snack should provide 0.25-0.5 grams of carbohydrate per pound for each hour prior to activity. A 150 pound athlete who trains 1 hour from now should aim for 75 grams of CHO (150 lbs x 0.5 g/lb = 75 x 1 hour = 75 grams).

• The session should begin with the athlete in an optimally hydrated state. Refer to Table 6.4 for guidelines.

• Solid foods are better consumed 1-4 hours before the session to allow adequate time for digestion. Liquid and semisolid foods (sports drinks, gels, yogurt) may be better tolerated if the workout is less than an hour away.

• Every 15-20 grams of carbohydrate should be accompanied by 8-10 oz fluid. Sports drinks (deliver both CHO and fluid) should fall within the above range to ensure an optimal 6-8% CHO solution, which is suggested for optimal gastric emptying.

• Fluid intake should be matched with fluid (sweat) losses. The American College of Sports Medicine and National Athletic Trainer’s Association support the recommendation that athletes should try to closely match fluid replacement with fluid losses (sweat) and keep overall fluid loss to less than 2% of the athlete’s pre-training body weight.

During the training year, an athlete’s fluid needs change. Early in the season, sweat rate may be lower due to the state of fitness and the training environment. As the body becomes more fit, the sweat rate may increase. In addition, the body adapts to weather transitions from cool to hot conditions by increasing sweat production. The amount of fluid an athlete needs is dependent on the type of environmental conditions in which the athlete is training and racing.